Information & news on advertising and marketing online

Menu

Now For Something Completely Different: Facebook Teases a Big Announcement

Gossip Girl ain’t got nothing on Facebook. The company recently sent out an invitation to the press with the promise of a big reveal on January 15 and now everyone is talking!

Many tech sites think Facebook is going to reveal their own smartphone. It’s an idea that’s been talked about for ages, even though Zuckerberg has clearly said it “wouldn’t make much sense.”

True, Facebook isn’t in the hardware biz, but neither was Amazon and they’re doing okay with their line of Kindles. For them, it’s about selling a gizmo cheap in order to get people to buy product. For Facebook, it would be about selling the brand along with the social lifestyle.

If it’s not about the phone, then what? How about a fancy new redesign?

The main change would be a move to push all of your updates to the left instead of splitting them into two columns. (Seriously, yeah!) The right column will work like WordPress widgets where you can move and order things the way you want them.

Cover page links will become tabs and there will be some changes to how your profile name and basic information layout across the top.

Nice changes, but it hardly seems worth calling a press conference.

I’m going with choice “C” – something completely off the grid. I’m hoping that Facebook is going to announce a product that wasn’t even a blip on anyone’s radar.

If it was me, I’d create Watch with Facebook. They already have social and photo sharing covered, they need to move into video. Let’s make it a combination of YouTube and Hulu – user generated uploads mixed with streaming movies and TV. Plus, they’re own Facebook channel with videos highlighting the most popular Facebook personalities, a gaming tips and tricks show, and a business show to help people expand their business through Facebook Pages and ads.

I really like this idea and if Facebook steals it, I want my cut.

Look, a Facebook press conference on their home turf is big news. And how funny that it’s coming after CES so they won’t have to share the tech spotlight with anyone else. What’s your guess? Phone, redesign or something completely different?